The most recent episode of Telltale's Batman: The Enemy Within made its way onto home consoles and PC, and it features a brief scene involving the death of a character that many found offensive. Well, Telltale decided to respond to the controversy about an image of a victim in the game looking like the late Russian diplomat Andrei Karlov, and so the company opted to clear everything up.
The second episode features an image of the diplomat who was killed in the gallery by a gunman. In a response to Gamasutra, Telltale's PR representative stated that the company will be removing the images across all platforms...
An update to the game has been submitted this morning that will be removing the image across all platforms. We regret this incident occurred, and we are taking appropriate action internally to ensure that we continue to maintain our high standards in Production and Quality Assurance
According to the article, the image appears as Bruce is using the Batcomputer to go over surveillance from a bank robbery. In the aftermath of the robbery, there are some dead victims on the ground, one of which resembles Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov, who was assassinated by a Turkish police officer last year.
The image in Batman: The Enemy Within sparked controversy within some communities, as people were outraged and offended that Telltale would include an image resembling a similar depiction of that of Karlov after he had been shot.
Telltale's response was prompt enough to show that it cares about the community's feedback and how its games are perceived.
The scene itself is nestled in near the beginning of the second episode of Batman: The Enemy Within, after Batman has a rather unfortunate tangle with the super-brute, Bane.
For most people who aren't really paying any mind, it's an easy to miss since it's part of a series of newspaper clippings centered around some of the crimes committed by Harley, Mr. Freeze, and Bane.
It took gamers just a day to find the image and compare it to the one that widely circulated over Karlov's assassination. It first popped up across some Twitter threads, where gamers compared the two images. Eventually, media began asking Telltale Games about the incident.
As noted in the article, this isn't the first time that video games have utilized assets from other properties and been called out for it. Naughty Dog managed to catch some fire when Uncharted used an asset from Assassin's Creed IV in an in-game painting, causing a bit of laughter and joviality to be had. However, in this case, there weren't many people laughing about the image that Telltale used in Batman: The Enemy Within.
Nevertheless, it appears as if the image will be removed rather quickly and so Telltale should be able to avoid any future controversies regarding this particular scenario. I'm sure the studio's quality assurance teams will be combing over every asset from now in fine detail to avoid any future mishaps.
Batman: The Enemy Within's latest episode is available right now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Telltale will also be releasing the next episode for Guardians of the Galaxy soon.
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